The Porcelain Greyhound
by SadiesWolf
Summary: Sherlock and John, a consultive detective and an ex army doctor, and a new challenging case to crack.
1. Chapter 1

**This is my first attempt at a Sherlock fanfic, or any fanfic for that matter so it might not be amazing but I will try my best. I will try to regularly add chapters although I have a busy life and often one with lots of writer block but I will get around to it eventually.**

* * *

"Bored!...This game is too easy, I need some-thing...some-thing more challenging, I need a new case!" Sherlock complained as he slammed his hands on the wooden coffee table in the middle of the living-room then rose to his feet and started to wander the apparently.

"It said in the newspaper that trivia is a difficult game to keep your mind busy" Mrs's Hudson spoke in her usual soft tone.

"It must be so annoying having such a small collection of knowledge!" Sherlock retaliated in a snap at the elderly lady.

"Sherlock!" John interrupted from sitting on the chair next to Mrs's Hudson. "That wasn't very nice!" John added as if telling him off like he was a child. John often took on the role as the person who told Sherlock how to behave.

"And you, everyone knows that tungsten is 74th on the periodic table and 'W' being it's symbol" Sherlock rolled his eye slightly at John then glanced out of the window as if looking for some-thing intellectual for him to occupy his mind with.

"I didn't" noted Mrs's Hudson in reply to Sherlock's remark.

"Thank you..." John agreed with his landlady and friend.

"Bored!" Sherlock repeated loudly and flopped over the chair so that he was sitting sideways, his back leaning on one arm of the chair then his legs dangling over the top of the other.

"Well looks like that's another game we shalt be playing again" John complained a little but Sherlock was paying little attention as he had flicked the television on and was sat watching the news. John and Mrs's Hudson began to clean up the trivia game and put the cards and the pieces of round plastic cheeses, which really were not cheese, back in the box.

"Sherlock please turn that down, it's rather loud" Mrs's Hudson pleaded with him. "Isn't that the man you work for?" she asked Sherlock as she saw the elder grey haired man, Lestrade live on the news being molested by a large mob made up of paparazzi and angered public citizens. Sherlock made no reply to her. John looked up momentarily at the TV after Mrs's Hudson's comment.

"Five, four, three, two..." Sherlock counted down slowly. "One!" Sherlock's face lit up as his phone started to ring. He jumped to his feet and moved once more towards the window to answers it. "Oh god yes!" Sherlock quickly replied before any words could be spoken, his face filled with joy.

"Come along John!" Sherlock called upon his sidekick after slipping his mobile phone into his pocket after the phone call. He swiftly walked across the room, scooped up his heavy coat made from pure Irish woollen tweed then slipped it on before he whipped across the room, a large grin on his face then slipped down the stairs. John quickly got up as he was called, hurried across the room to fetch his coat before racing after Sherlock. "Sherlock wait up!" John called as he was once more left behind because Sherlock was in such a rush, it wasn't uncommon for Sherlock to race off in excitement. Once outside it took them about twenty seconds to flag down a black London cab.  
Once inside John looked expectantly at Sherlock wanting to know the details of their new case. The phone call was short therefore Sherlock must had been tracking the case for a while waiting for the police to once more have to call out their helpline and it wasn't like Sherlock would jump at any case, Sherlock would only take the cases that meant he would have to figure out a puzzle, he enjoyed that. Sherlock grinned back at John.

* * *

"Twenty seven murders over the past two years, one each month, the bodies all left laying on their backs with their arms crossed over their chest, eyes closed and the shape of a cross drawn on their forehead with their own blood" Sherlock announced, his words came across as rather excited which they were, Sherlock got some sort of thrill from working on murder cases, especially serial criminals. The cab driver seemed rightfully disturbed by the way Sherlock spoke about the murder of another human being, it was too normal and fun in his opinion, he didn't say a word but he did tense up slightly. John looked at Sherlock that told him his tone was not acceptable. "Okay, just calm down, dead people remember" noted John quietly so only Sherlock could hear as he caught sight of the cab drivers becoming reasonably comfortable.

"John, this mans a genius, not once has anyone seen him or has he been caught out! Genius!" Sherlock remarked, his face glowing like he was a little child about to be given a christmas present early. John himself was not quite the same way and he made it clear in his facial expressions that he was not amused by Sherlocks choice to ignore his attempts to encourage Sherlock to relax and be more emotional and so John turned his head to look out the misted window into the partially busy Autumn streets of London. Sherlock had taken note of what John was saying and fell silent, he too then turned to look out of the taxi window.

"Just try to remember that these people have families and emotions" John commented to Sherlock in a more stricter tone however it wasn't likely Sherlock would take to much notice, Sherlock wasn't exactly one for taking orders. "We don't want a repeat of what happened with the travelers case" added John as he stared at Sherlock with a tensed gaze but Sherlock simply huffed slightly and continued to look out of the taxi window. John watched Sherlock's reaction before he gave up and persisted to gaze out of his window also. He had wished that Sherlock would be a little more sociable some times, silent cab rides were always silent and slightly uneasy because of the silence however Sherlock liked to use the time to think, not only that but honestly, Sherlock is not really the chatty type of guy, that was just Sherlock.


	2. Chapter 2

They arrived at the scene pretty fast. The black London cab was stopped by the police outside a house which had been blocked off by blue police tape and was filled with police officers, Sherlock and John made their exit while the police interviewed the cab driver slightly. Sherlock slipped out and across the pavement followed, by John at a less swifter gait, as Lastrade exited the house wearing a full suit, evidently he had been expecting a meeting or some-thing formal but had been called out instead. He looked glad to see Sherlock and John.

The house was an older looking house, not ancient but not new, about thirty years old. It was built from a grey color brick, the front had three windows, one large window downstairs and upstairs then a small window next to the upstairs window. All of the windows were open on a crack. Upstairs was empty, downstairs was filled with police, evidently the crime scene. The wooden brown door was help open and guarded by an officer in a bright yellow coat, it was their procedures. The garden was large, slightly overgrown, pretty plain top, just grass and a few half dead plants that may had looked nicer in their prime. The house was not a single house, connected to another exactly the same but mirrored, all the houses were like that. The garden next door was different, no wire mesh fencing or pained black metal gate although it still looked unkempt, like all of the gardens in the street.  
"Ahh...good, you have arrived. The crime scene is pretty bare, no DNA traces or fingerprints. Theres just nothing" Lestrade informed Sherlock as he handed his arm out to shake Sherlock's hand. Sherlock of course didn't make an attempt to reply the hand gesture.  
"We'll see about that" he replied, rather a polite reply for Sherlock as he passed through into the house. Lestrade looked at John and stopped him.  
"Oh and by the way, Andersons on forensics, try to be civil for a change?" Lestrade said to John as if expecting him to keep the peace by controlling Sherlock. John took a deep breath before catching up with Sherlock.

The room was clean and tidy, the owner obviously took great care of their, it was almost as if no-one lived there at all. The floor was polished oak with a large white fur rug in the centre of the room and it was evident that it had been hoovered regularly because the carpet showed hoover lines, the wooden flood had been polished regularly and there wasn't a scratch in site. There There were two white leather couches which would sit two people, one sat to the right of the room and the other sat across the room facing from one end to the other, neither facing directly at the large flat screen television which faced diagonally between the two on the opposite side of the room, neatly in the corner. On the left side of the room was a fire place, the inside of the fireplace looked as if it had never been used and but was set up as if it was ready to be used although it was clear by the clean state of the fireplace that it would never be used. Above the fire place sat a number of trophies, the first was a silver chalice with '2nd Place, Birmingham' engraved into the base, the second was bronze statue of a greyhound mounted on a base with the engravings 'Champion Relay'. On the far right was another statue of a greyhound, this one in the sprinting position with it's legs held far out and then another next to that which was taller than the rest, it was another greyhound standing proudly on a stadium. In the centre of the mantelpiece lay a porcelain greyhound statue, painted with mainly black and some white, it was neatly polished and evidently cared for well.

The body was sat on the floor leaning back against the south white leather sofa, one arm was spread across the cushion and the middle aged man's head was rolled back facing the direction of his arm. His dark black hair was short and stained with blood, along with the sofa which has a trail of red liquid all the way down to the back and side of the leather cushions. The television remote was resting inches away from his limp hand, maybe he had dropped it. He was an averaged sized man which maybe had a bit of excess weight where he wasn't the most active of people. Standing he would be about five foot tall, with long legs compared to his body. He was slumped down, he almost looked relaxed, his legs sprawled out and bent at the knees in a comfortable pose. He was wearing a more formal, buttoned up white shirt and dark blue jeans, the shirt was tucked in under his brown leather buckle belt. His shoes were new white trainers with two blue stripes down either side of each trainer, they looked almost as if it was the first time he had ever warn them except for the underside which was darkened slightly where they had been warn outside, but only once.

Sherlock walked in and instantly there was a seance of tension in the air again as he greeted Anderson and Sally.  
"So how long for this time?" Sherlock asked Anderson in a spiteful way, Anderson seemed puzzled.  
"What?"  
"Freak" muttered Sally from across the room.  
"Well I see Sally has been scrubbing you floors again, surely they are clean enough by now!" Sherlock replied with a grin across his face as if he was proud of his comeback.  
"Sherlock!" John butted in abruptly, clearly he thought it wasn't appropriate.  
"Well I bet you and John do more than polishing floors" Anderson replied to Sherlock. John looked a little uncomfortable but Sherlock looked in his comfort zone.  
"I'm not gay..." John tried top argue but he wasn't very good at it and his tone showed that easily because his words didn't seem confident.  
"I'm amazed, you actually made a comeback, but still, your attempts humour me!" Sherlock replied, his grin had disappeared and he looked more serious but he was still enjoying the argument.

At that moment Lestrade walked in.  
"So?" he asked Sherlock wondering what he had found.  
Sherlock glanced over at the body for a second, it took him a few moments to take in the information and to take a large breath before he started spilling out information.  
"He's just come home from work, he's wearing a shirt so some-thing formal, but he's also wearing jeans so not an professional office job, maybe a manager or an owner of some sort of small business. His shoes are new and going by the state of the room he likes to show off what he's got and so only buys some-thing if it's brand is considered valuable..."  
Sherlock took a breath and bent down to go through the dead man pockets.  
"...seventy five pence in change, screwed up horse race bet, clearly he lost, car keys...business card...he's a manager at a car sales shop!""Yes, his names Mark Fright. But who killed him?" Lestrade wanted to know. Sherlock looked up at Lestrade and shushed him.  
"I'm getting there" Sherlock replied. "His bodies cool but not completely, it's still warm, but stiff meaning that time of murder would had been between six and seven o'clock and night. He came home from work and was just about to sit down and watch tv, probably sports going by the ticket I found in his pocket..."  
Sherlock got up and moved around to the back of the sofa where he studied the back of the man head.  
"...Blow to the back of the head with a small instrument, a hammer is most probational" Sherlock commented. "The murderer was hiding in here, waiting!" he looked at Lestrade who looked puzzled about how Sherlock could know that. "Really!" Sherlock let out a frustrated sigh. "The murderer would have had to had been hiding or he would had been heard entering  
the building. There's wooden floors all across this house, if anyone was to be moving around they would surely be making a sound!" He replied, it was evident when Sherlock pointed it out.

Sherlock looked across at John as if to wondering if he had missed anything although it was more likely that he was wondering if John wanted to add anything. As usual John was amazed by Sherlocks skills and he wasn't alone. Lestrade was also taking a while to take it all in although he looked less surprised as John. Both Anderson and Sally in the background had gathered around to take in what Sherlock had said.  
"What, like a ninja?" Anderson broke the silence. "First spiderman and now a ninja" Angerson didn't believe Sherlock as usual.  
"Get out!" Sherlock ordered to Anderson.  
"Sherlock! Thats rude" John replied to Sherlock as if telling him off.  
"Anderson" Lestrade hinted to him to follow Sherlocks orders. Clearly he didn't look to impressed, he let out a huff then left the room followed by Sally.  
"Get me a list of everyone he works with, I want to ask them some questions" Sherlock said to Lestrade before he turned to leave the room and proceed with the case. He didn't say a word to John, it was as if he was giving him the silent treatment for him not standing up for him, which he wasn't.  
"Sorry" John apologized to Lestrade. "We'll see you again soon"  
"Yeah, tell Sherlock it may take some time to find everyone" Lestrade called to John as he was already left.  
"Sure" John replied although he knew Sherlock would not be too happy. He quickly jogged out the house to catch up with Sherlock.

"Where to now?" asked John as he finally caught up with Sherlock, he hoped he would say back to the flat, he was looking forward to a quiet day but as usual Sherlock had other plans. He pulled out the small white business card and held it between his index and middle finger.  
"Maylands Business Park" Sherlock announced and smiled with gleaming eyes. He was clearly already excited about this case. John forced a small smile and hurried after him.


End file.
